Tag: Irish average earnings

Pay growth has been modest by historical standards across many developed economies in recent years, despite tightening labour markets, and Ireland is no exception- average weekly earnings only started to rise again in 2014, and average annual increases of around 1% have been the norm. Unemployment peaked in early 2012 at 16%, and has been falling steadily since, declining to 6.2% at the end of 2017, so one might expect that firms would have to increase pay to attract and retain labour.

Average weekly earnings did pick up through 2017, according to the latest CSO data, rising by by annual 2.5% in the final quarter of the year, which brought the annual average increase to 2%. The growth in private sector earnings last year was lower, at 1.8%, and was outpaced by the 2.6% average rise in the public sector. Pay in the latter is on average 41% higher than in the private sector, but has generally lagged since 2008, when the differential was 46%.

Average pay masks large differentials across the various sectors in the economy and the the recovery has been kinder to some workers than to others; the earnings of workers in Information and Communication, Scientific and Professional services and Adminstration and Support have all significantly outstripped the average growth in pay, while the Financial sector has recently recorded strong pay growth after steep falls during the recession. Surprisingly, perhaps, pay in construction is not as buoyant as one might imagine, with average earnings barely increasing in 2017 and still below the 2008 level.

Consumer prices rose by only 0.4% last year so a 2% pay rise translated into a 1.6% increase in real earnings. Nominal pay growth is generally expected to accelerate in 2018, given the further erosion of slack in the labour market, although, as seen elsewhere, the traditional relationship between unemployment and pay growth, the Phillips Curve, has become much flatter,